Nov. 21, 1903.] 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
411 
JVEVEP^ FAILS and 
ALWAYS ACCl/'RATE 
UNITED STATES CARTRIDGE COMPANY 
LOWELL. MASS. 
Agencies: 
497-505 Pearl Street. 35-43 Park Street. New York. 
114-116 Market Street, Sa-n Fratncisco. 
Cincinnati Rifle Association. 
On Nov. 8 the following scores were made, shooting at 200yds., 
offhand, 25-ring target. Nestler shot in good form, leading with 
222 : Honor. 
Nestler 222 217 217 214 214 64 
Payne 219 215 212 211 208 66 
Gindele 218 213 206 200 199 68 
Bruns 209 2C5 200 198 19.3 67 
Lux 208 204 203 202 202 44 
Hofer 208 189 188 174 173 67 
Trounstine 206 198 195 164 159 59 
H Uckotter 197 189 182 172 166 44 
Freitag 193 192 190 189 184 50 
G Uckotter, Jr 143 138 120 116 71 33 
Presque Isle Rifle Clufa. 
Erie, Pa., Nov. 7.— Six members turned out for the weekly 
shoot to-day. The weather was rather cold, with a northwest 
wind blowing. Scores: 
J G Germann 86 81 7-^241 J Bacon 72 66 62—200 
W A Parker 79 73 72—224 J Almeda 62 61 58—181 
A Mount 72 71 70—213 E D Allen 54 50 43—147 
Cabia Blanco. 
Rifle Notes* 
The riflemen in and about New York want to see the Sports- 
man's Association revise the rifle shooting contests in its exposi- 
tion in February. The rifle competitions that were held at the 
Sportsman's Exposition some years ago were all of them success- 
ful, in as much that after all the expenses were paid there was a 
surplus for the Association's treasury. 
K 
The New York Central Corps opened its winter gallery season 
prize shooting in the Zettler gallery on Wednesday night of this 
week. 
The New York City Corps will hold its first shoot in its series 
of winter gallerv contests on the Zettler ranges on Nov. 26. 
•? 
Gus Zimmermann is reported to be a candidate for captain of the 
New York Independent Corps, at the annual meeting in January 
next. ^ 
The Zettler Rifle Club has an auxiliary corps, formed from the 
wives, daughters and friends of the members. It is known as the 
Lady Zettler Club. The president is Mrs. Harry Fenwirth, the 
wife of a prominent member of the Zettler Club. The head- 
quarters of the Ladies' Club is at the Zettler Bros.' gallery, No. 
159 West Twenty-third street. The Ladies' Club will begin a 
series of bi-monthly gallery shooting on Nov. 21. The coming 
season will be the second in which the ladies have entered into 
rifle contests in the gallery. ^ 
At the Election Day shoot at Armbruster's Park, in Jersey 
City, on Nov. 3, some of the riflemen took liberties with Dr. 
Hudson's cartridges to find out what sort of a load the Doctor 
was using, that enabled him to make the extraordinary score that 
he made at the time. The Doctor uses in his shooting a Bal- 
Pope 33cal rifle, .32-40 shell. King's EG Semi-smokeless powder, 
primed with 5grs. Dupont's No. 1 Smokeless and Peters 2^2 
primers The shells that were taken from the Doctor s cartrmge 
case were loaded with plain semi-smokeless. The Doctor ex- 
plains the matter this way: In loading his shells for the 100-shot 
match he ran out of nitro, and in order to have surplus car- 
tridges for preliminary practice, he loaded the balance of his 
■ shells with plain EG semi, and these were the shells that the in- 
quisitive riflemen got hold of. ^ 
Geo D Wiegman, one of Newark's prominent riflemen, also 
an old member of the Zettler Rifle Club, died at his home m 
Newark, on Sunday, Nov. 15. 
Match for Championship, Fort "Wayne, Ind. 
A MATCH for the live-bird State championship of Indiana was 
shot on Nov. 10 at Fort Wayne, between H M. Clark, of 
Wabash and Max Witzegreuter, who won the title from Clark a 
while a-o The conditions were 50 live birds and $50 a side, and 
Clark won by one bird. The scores: Clark 46. Witz 45. 
Witz immediately challenged Clark for another match same 
conditions, and was defeated the second time by a score of 48 to 
Clark making 94 out of the 100, a new record for these 
^ Onth; same day J. Smiley, of Matthews. Ind and Wm. Ferrell, 
of Muncie; shot a match at 50 birds, $50 a side, resulting in a 
victorv for Ferrell by a score of 42 to 30. 
A match at 100 live birds, 1200 a comer, is being arranged be- 
tween ^tk, Ed Voris, of Crawfordsville, and Witzegreuter. to 
be shot ,t Indianapolis. The ^it^ner tP take th. entire purse^^ 
If you want your shoot to be announced here send a 
notice like the following: 
Fixture*. 
Nov. 21.— Brooklyn, N. Y., Gun Club shoot, 100-target allow- 
ance handicap ; $5 to high guns. J. S. Wright, Mgr. 
Nov. 26.— Chicago, 111., Gun Club Thanksgiving Day shoot. A. 
A. Waters, Sec'y. 
Dec. 9-10. — West Baden, Ind. — Baden-Lick Club amateur live- 
bird shoot. J. L. Winston, Mgr. 
DRIVERS AND TWISTERS. 
At the shoot of the Sheepshead Bay, L. I., Gun Club shoot on 
Saturday of this week, the main contest will be for the Dr. 
Knowlton cup, the conditions of which are 50 pairs, all standing 
at scratch; no handicaps. Also, on Thursday of this week there 
will be a club contest, open to members only, ror a special prize. 
The Brooklyn Gun Club, John S. Wright, manager, will give 
a shoot Nov. 21, at 1:30 P. M. sharp; 100-target handicap, target 
allowance, for gold watch; entries 50 cents, targets extra; optional 
in this event; $5; no handicap; high guns. Kaiser's Farm, Old 
Mill Road, Kings County "L" to Crescent street station. Hacks 
to grounds. 
A Theory of Choke Boringf. 
From the London Field. 
Among the large number of problems still awaiting solution in 
connection with the behavior of shotguns are many which have 
been carried a certain distance by experimentalists in the past, 
and which might be carried further by the help of modern ap- 
pliances and the more exact knowledge of underlying theories 
which now exist. Considering, for instance, how long choke 
guns have been in use, it is surprising that a satisfactory ex- 
planation of the action of the choke in condensing the patterns 
has yet to be found. The most plausible to our mind is one 
which we believe has not before been stated in print. It is that 
by the action of the choke a wave pressure is created in the 
column of gas behind the shot, which modifies the disturbing in- 
fluences of the blast of gas issuing from the muzzle after the shot 
has gone out. , 
In other words, the action of the choke is very similar to that 
of an obstruction in the barrel. The extra resistance encoun- 
tered causes a check in the forward movement of the shot, where- 
by the velocity is reduced by a certain number of feet. The 
piling up of the gases behind the over-powder wad that results 
from the delayed movement of the shot would necessarily cause 
a high local pressure immediately to the rear of the wad. This 
high local pressure would create a tendency for the gases causing 
it to rebound from the wad, so driving backward against the 
advancing gases that fill the remainder of the barrel. Supposing 
that the shot charge thus leaves the muzzle at the critical 
moment when the forward movement of the gases is momentarily 
delayed, it would stand a chance of getting well on its way up 
the range before the jet of gas fully re-establishes its forward 
movement. Deductions from experiments already published go 
to prove tliat the gases leave the muzzle at a velocity of some- 
thing approaching 3000ft. per second, which would conceivably 
enable them to impinge against the shot, and so cause a slight 
scattering effect, which would be particularly marked in cases 
where the wadding is caught by the full strength of the outrush- 
ing gases. If, therefore, the spreading of the charge of shot may 
be° attributed to the emerging gases blowing the charge from the 
straight line of fire, it is quite easy to see that the presence of 
a partial obstruction near the muzzle would modify the scattering 
effect by creating a wave of back pressure to resist the forward- 
traveling column of gas. 
This theory seems to fit in with most of the experiences of 
practical gun-makers in regulating choke guns. First of all, one 
knows that the greater the reduction of the bore at the choke the 
greater is the concentration of pellets. More than this, it fre- 
quently happens that a choke which has the correct shape and 
adjustment may fail to produce the needful concentration of pat- 
tern, and, that the effect of the choke may be entirely altered by 
boring out the barrel so as to bring the constriction nearer to the 
muzzle. Following out the theory above presented, one might 
assume that the alteration of the position of the choke modifies 
the time of the delay of the rush of gases, whereby the shot 
woi:ld get sufficiently away from the muzzle before the forward 
movement of the gases was fully re-establisbed. 
In other cases where it is found that a choke fails to produce 
the desired effect, it frequently happens that by increasing the 
abruptness of the cone of the choke the required concentration 
of the pellets is obtained. In true cylinder guns another very 
interesting illustration of the theory can be adduced. In carrying 
out experiments with true cylinder barrels, we have frequently 
been surprised at the remarkable variations of pattern from shot 
to shot experienced. Four successive shots may give an average 
distribution of 140 pellets on the 30in. circle; then may follow°a 
succession of three or four shots with an average of 100 pellets; 
and it is almost invariably found that in every ten shots there 
are one or two rounds where the pattern displays the peculiarity 
which is commonly known as "blown all over the plate." Very 
low patterns, counting as little as sixty pellets in the circle, are 
thus obtained, and one must assume their presence to be due to 
the violent impact of the felt wad against the cluster of shot soon 
after it has left the mu.^zle. In proof of the fact that the tendency 
of choke boring is to delay the movement of the shot, an illus- 
tration may be quoted which has been proved by numerous ex- 
periments we have recently conducted. It is that careful measure- 
ments of the muzzle velocity with choke and cylinder guns show 
that the average records with choke boring display inferior 
velocity on the part of the choke gun to those encountered with 
the cylinder. The difference referred to may amount on the 
average to 30ft. per second, which might well be reckoned suffi- 
cient to influence the behavior of the gases at the rear of the 
shot. 
Supposing that this theory of the influence of choking in gun 
barrels is the correct one, we have in it a very satisfactory ex- 
planation for the marked partiality of sportsmen for what are 
known as improved cylinder guns. In this class of gun there is 
an extremely small amount of choke, which seems to have a 
marked influence upon the shooting results obtained. In fact, 
with an improved cylinder one generally obtains patterns aver- 
aging very closely to 140 pellets, whereas with the true cylinder 
the patterns obtained represent a mixture of records representing 
two extremes, say 140 on the one side and 100 on the other. Here 
for instance, is an actual series of patterns which fairly well 
illustrates our argument: 129, 137, 131, 130, 80, 97, 68, 121, 129, 
65, average 109. Another gun of similar boring was shot for 
comparison, and the following series of records was obtained: 
145, 100, 146, 104, 99, 134, 135, 97, 65, 132, 125, 103— average 115. 
The distinction between true and improved cylinders seems to 
be that the improved cylinder gun gives with considerable regu- 
larity the patterns which a true cylinder would give, but for the 
apparent presence of a disturbing factor that seems to spoil 
about half the readings. In fact, we regard the natural distribu- 
tion of the true cylinder gun as about equal to that of the im- 
proved cylinder, if only we could get rid of the disturbing in- 
fluence which one may well assume is due to the impact of the 
waddings against the charge. Professor Boj's's experiments in the 
photography of shot charges at the moment of emerging from the 
muzzle shows the cluster of shot lying in a fairly compact body, 
with the wad at some point between it and the muzzle. As- 
suming the velocity of the powder gases to be about two and a 
half times that of the shot charge for the first 12in. of travel 
beyond the muzzle, one can easily see that the blast of gas 
would be quite capable of making the wad overtake the shot and 
disturb its flight. On those occasions when the wad is driven at 
a tangent from the line of flight of the shot, the charge would 
only be disturbed by the blow from the gases. If, on the other 
hand, the wad happens to strike the cluster of shot, the regular 
arrangement of the pellets would be likely to be badly disturbed. 
It may be assumed, for the sake of argument, that the virtue of 
the improved cj'linder, and in fact, of all other forms of choke, 
consists in the fact that the muzzle blast is so modified and de- 
layed as to allow the shot to get sufficiently clear of the muzzle 
before being overtaken by the onrushing gases to get rid of 
some of their most injurious effects on the flight of the pellets. 
Numerous experiments could be made to test the theory here 
evolved. One might, for instance, insert a small metal ring at 
the muzzle of a barrel so placed as to cause a check at the 
moment of final exit of the shot. By comparing the results ob- 
tained with and without such a ring in the muzzle of a true cyl- 
inder, important and novel information might be obtained. Simi- 
larly, one might drill a number of holes around the muzzle of a 
true cylinder gun, the idea of which would be to allow the escape 
of the gases before the shot had actually reached the muzzle, and 
thus largely modify the outrush of gases that would ordinarily 
exist. However ingeniously such experiments might be devised, 
the resulting inferences would only prove the correctness of the 
theory by deduction, though of course the body of circum- 
stantial evidence so established might be well-nigh overwhelming. 
Most authorities are agreed that the amount of scattering ob- 
served with a charge of shot is greater than would exist from the 
natural deviation of ?, conglomeration of pellets projected towarc\ 
